Question: What's the weirdest thing you've to treat?

There are lots of weird and wonderful things you come across that are really rare or you never get to the bottom of, which is part of what’s so interesting. People get things stuck in odd places and injure themselves in funny ways often! I remember one patient who got a bird related lung disease from their feather duvet, which no one had seen before. Don’t throw out your bedding because of that though!

When I was a psych nurse we had to look after alsorts, but the weirdest was when the general ward next door to us asked for us to go through and change a patients dressing as they had dementia and they couldn’t get the patient to cooperate. I went in and just used the ladies name and told her what I was going to do and she was more than happy to let me do it. Sometimes people forget to treat everybody the same just because they have a mental illness.

That’s a real tough question to answer! I’ve seen some very odd psychiatric conditions in the past – for example people having episodes where they get odd smells and then the next thing they remember is that they are somewhere else. I’ve always found mental health really interesting and the mind has an amazing ability to play tricks on you!